Nuclear Reactor Presents Huge Implications For NRG Energy

NRG Energy Inc.(NRG), announced plans late Monday of intentions to build and commission a nuclear reactor in Bay City, Texas. NRG's completed construction and operating license submission would mark the first application the government has processed since 1979.

With Constellation Energy Group's partially filed application and several anticipated requests from Dominion Resources Inc. (D) and others, NRG's proposed reactor could signify an inflection point for our aging nuclear energy industry.

This move comes in the wake of rising concerns over greenhouse gases, surging energy demand and improving favorable economics of nuclear energy generation. Even with the significant capital costs required, nuclear energy's average of 1.72 cents/kWh edges out the 2.37 and 6.75 cents required for coal and natural gas facilities, respectively.

NRG estimates the plant to be commissioned during fiscal 2014, however increased concerns over safety and a 42 month government review, the process could take much longer. Needless to say, If NRG succeeds and commissions this 2 million home reactor, the implications for the company and the burgeoning US nuclear industry will be huge.

Comments

[jim corbin]

Thorium has advantages over U238. Thorium produces no bomb
making material. A thorium reactor can consume U238 waste and eliminate our storage problem.

Thorium reactors can accept 55%thorium/45% U238 fuel.

Jim Corbin
.

[Carpe Max]

With rising oil prices and heating prices, nuclear energy is the way to go. Expect a lot of competition in the rush to build reactors. According to NewsVisual www.newsvisual.com/new... , NRG may have a slight advantage. Some of their executives shared directorships with Retired Marine Corps General Paul Kelley. Gen. Kelley also chaired a military/business panel on US energy security in 2006, which probably put him in a lot of contact with energy industry heads. This connection could be huge for NRG when it comes to federal lobbying.

[swimjames]

Jim- how do you know NRG will be using a thorium reactor? Also, what to do about nuclear waste disposal (if necessary) in light of the problems with the proposed nuclear waste site in Yucca Mountain, Nevada? See below:
The proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,
poses unacceptable threats to human health, public safety
and the environment.

Important scientific, ethical, and policy questions about
the repository proposal remain unresolved, as identified in
part by independent federal review agencies. The risks of
transporting highly radioactive waste through 44 states to a
questionable site cannot be justified. A crash or attack involving
just one of these shipments could be catastrophic.

We, the undersigned citizens, petition you to oppose the dangerous
Yucca Mountain Project.

Road to Yucca Mountain: Nuclear Waste and Terrorism

by Alan Sussex, February 2003

Exerpted

This is a 13 million year-old volcanic ridge called Yucca Mountain. A
5.0 earthquake had rocked the area and did some damage to the media
reception area, display center, cafeteria and office complex. Repairs
and seismic improvements were estimated to cost approximately $2
million. A second 4.4 quake struck this volcanic area on June 4, 2002,
centered 12 ½ miles away. It caused no damage. There are 39 earthquake
falts and 7 young volcanoes in the area around the mountain. DOE had
originally said that the area might expect an earthquake about every
10,000 years.

This geologic zone has been studied and monitored by Department of
Energy project scientists for over 24 years. Representatives of the
project have been assuring the public that Yucca Mountain is stable and
that burying 77,000 tons of spent radioactive fuel rods and high level
waste would be safe 600 to 950 feet under the mountain. There is a main
tunnel sloping downward, and around the 600 ft. level, a grid of smaller
tunnels start and travel down to about 950 feet, with storage rooms
branching off of those smaller tunnels.

As little as one millionth of a gram will cause cancer if breathed in or
entering your body or blood stream by way of a cut or other openings in
the skin.

Plutonium 239 isotopes have a ½ life of 22,000 years, it needs to be
kept isolated out of the air and water for a very long time. The most
often used figure by project DOE spokesmen is 10,000 years, a figure
that may be grossly underestimated.

Strontium 90, for instance, has a half life of 30 years which means half
of its radioactivity will decay in 30 years. It will then take another
30 years for half of the remaining radioactivity to decay and then an
additional 30 years for half of that to decay and on and on. So when
it's said that Strontium 90 has a half life of 30 years, it means it
will remain dangerous for hundreds of years, even at low levels.

Government scientists initially believed that water would take 9,000 to
80,000 years to flow from the repository to the water table far below.
In 1997 researchers discovered fractures in the rock where water flows
much faster. Scientists found traces of chlorine-36 which does not exist
in nature, in the five mile tunnel drilled to explore the mountain's
rock. That material is produced by nuclear explosions, most of which
took place at the nearby test facility. In less than 60 years it had
already traveled through 800 feet of rock. In 1996 the Energy Department
said that some water could go from the waste repository level to the
water table 1,300 feet down, in 50 years.

The most critical challenge that faces the Energy Department is
designing a container capable of keeping the waste not only isolated
from the corrosive effects of water and the environment, but also from
the damage caused to the containers by the radioactive material held
inside them for 10,000 years. It is possible that rain water could seep
down through cracks and fissures in the volcanic mountain, percolating
on by the stored material on its way to the water table far below. That
water eventually flows off site where it feeds wells and surfaces as
springs.

But in the end, it may be the wind that poses the most danger with the
possibility of spreading radioactive particles over large areas of land.
At the Hanford Plutonium Production Facility in Washington State, the
Department of Energy has admitted releasing 557,000 curies of
radioactivity material, mostly Iodine 131 for the years 1944, 1945, 46
and 47. Up to 270,000 men, women and children were exposed as
downwinders. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act,
show that biological agents were released upon an unsuspecting public in
San Francisco and in the New York subway system during the 1960's.

Under the direction of Richard Helms, the CIA had a program called
MK-ULTRA in which it would conduct drug experiments upon members of the
military and U.S. citizens without their knowledge or consent.

The report was completed and released in 1995 admitting government
responsibility and that it was wrong to commit such acts on unaware
subjects during the Cold War. Still only a few have been compensated for
their pain and suffering; while for most, it was too late for
reparations, their time had run out.

On October 30, 2002 it was reported that the U.S. admitted conducting
experiments involving small amounts of the highly toxic nerve gas,
sarin. They were conducted in the U.S, Hawaii and Panama, again on the
public without their knowledge, during the cold war years.

Unless one is exposed to high concentrations of radiation, it is
sometimes difficult to determine the cause of illness because of the
delayed effects after exposure. To complicate this, there are the
numerous kinds of radiation that react differently on different parts of
the body. Iodine 131 is short lived and dangerous for a matter of weeks
and will collect in the thyroid. Strontium 90 on the other hand is
dangerous for hundreds of years and will collect in the bones causing
leukemia. Cesium 137 is also dangerous for about the same period of time
and will accumulate in the muscle tissue.

In those early years of the Cold War, the possible health effects of
these tests were suppressed out of national security considerations.

It's estimated that over 300 million curies currently remain in the soil
at the Nevada test site. A curie is a measure of how many atoms per
second are decaying and emitting particles and rays. 10 curies of Cesium
137 would be enough to contaminate about 200 city blocks.

Yucca Mountain is expected to hold between 10 and 15 times that amount,
if only 77,000 tons are buried there (3 to 41/2 billion curies).

Once again, security considerations seem to be driving a process that
may have tragic consequences for many unaware inhabitants of large
portions of the U.S. This time it is spent nuclear fuel rods and
high-level waste stored around the U.S. at 131 sites in 39 states that
would be destined for Yucca Mountain. Most of these fuel rods are
currently stored on site at 103 operating nuclear power plants near
densely populated areas. One hundred sixty one million people currently
live within 75 miles of one or more of these sites.

In a commercial reactor designed to produce electricity, a controlled
chain reaction takes place within the reactor's core by splitting atoms
of uranium. This creates a great amount of heat in the uranium-filled
fuel rods and a variety of products that are highly unstable which give
off gamma rays and sub atomic particles. The heat is then used to boil
water; the steam then turns a turbine which is connected to a generator
that produces electricity.

Hot spent fuel rods containing uranium pellets are removed from the
reactor core before their specially constructed high temperature
resistant containers become dangerously corroded and start to
disintegrate from being bombarded by the atomic particles. They are
relocated outside the hardened reactor containment vessel to a nearby
large enclosed, water-filled tank. The tanks and their domes are made of
4-foot thick reinforced concrete, with the tank having a steel liner.
They are said to be earthquake safe, but not "hardened" like the
containment vessel that house the reactor core.

Experts disagree as to whether in fact the containment vessel could
withstand being struck by a 747 aircraft. Some say it can, while others
say that it can't, but that the resulting fire would burn up and away
from the core that lies below. The cooling tanks on the other hand may
be vulnerable if struck by a small missile or light plane.

It is during this cool down process within these tanks outside the
protected containment vessel that the chances of a catastrophic incident
with disastrous consequences could occur, possibly the result of a
terrorist act.

Within the tanks, the spent fuel rods are kept in about 39 feet of water
that glows a rich blue from the excited uranium. Estimates vary
depending upon use and type of spent fuel (military or civilian
reactors) as to how long it must be kept in the pools before they are
cool enough to be "dry casked," a time which can range anywhere from 5
to 30 years -- on average 5 to 10 years. If for any reason the tank is
breached and loses its coolant, the rods will start to overheat melting
their containers first, then the steel pool liner and then the holding
tank itself. Other nearby cooler rods would also be melted into a
boiling burning zirconium fire that cannot be put out. That fire would
emit deadly plutonium, Cesium 137, Strontium 90 and other radioactive
materials up into the atmosphere to be spread by wind for hundreds of
miles, and possibly thousands!

The resulting melt down of the rods and the tank would be similar to the
core melt down that took place at the Chernobyl reactor in the Soviet
Union. Quite possibly it could be much larger, as there are many more
fuel rods in the cooling tanks than there are normally in a reactor core
when it is operating. Therefore the amount of radiation released could
be significantly higher. While the amount of fuel in a commercial
reactor may vary, depending upon its type, on average there are about 20
tons of fuel rods in the reactor core under normal operating conditions.
For example, the two reactors located on the Chesapeake Bay have 950
tons of stored radioactive waste on hand, while the Dresden Plant near
Joliet, IL, has 6,579 fuel assemblies, some 15,000 tons, stored in twin
pools.

When the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1985, it blew off the top of the
building, sending up 90 million curies of radioactive debris to a height
of almost two miles (some estimate the total curies released to be
actually several times larger). On site radiation reached 100 roentgens
an hour. This level produces hourly doses hundreds of times the maximum
dose that the International Commission on Radiological Protection
recommends for members of the public per year. Levels on the roof of the
destroyed reactor reached an unbelievable 100,000 roentgens an hour. As
of 1996, well over 260,000 sq. kilometers of land in the Ukraine, Russia
and Belarus still had more than one curie per sq. kilometer of
contamination from Cesium 137.

Millions of people had to be relocated to other areas of the country and
provided with housing, food and medical treatment. Entire towns were
abandoned along with their economic productivity. Everything was left
behind. Hundreds of square miles of once productive farmland, along with
all of their animals and equipment, were lost. An area the size of
England, Ireland, and Wales put together, or about 160,000 sq.
kilometers. A dead zone of 25 miles surrounds the reactor that was once
inhabited by 135,000 people who were moved within 10 days of the
accident. More than 60 settlements beyond that zone have also been
relocated -- 2.6 million people still live in the heavily contaminated
area that includes over 1,300 towns and villages. A total of about 3.3
million people have been exposed as a result of the accident, 700,000 of
them being children. One fifth of the area's residences suffer from the
effects of radiation exposure.

It is difficult to get an accurate number of those affected because of
the great dislocation of the inhabitants. Conservative estimates place
the number of deaths at about 32,000; other estimates place the number
at almost twice that figure. Of the 400,000 workers, or "liquidators"... as
they were called, who took part in burying the exposed reactor core and
constructing the sarcophagus with its 20- foot thick walls, 5,000 are
now too ill to work. Twenty-eight firefighters and workers died within a
few months of the accident from radiation exposure.

Because of the long latency period no one is quite sure how many new
malignancies will develop or how far they spread in the body. The actual
number becoming ill and those who die will continue to grow over time
because of the latent effects of radiation exposure. The full scope of
this tragedy may not be known for decades. In Russia alone some 3.3
million people were affected by this accident. Still inside the
destroyed reactor are thousands of metric tons of fuel with a total
radio activity of 20 million curies and a radiation level of several
thousand roentgens per hour, lethal for any life form.

In April of 2002, officials at Chernobyl estimated that gaps in the
concrete and steel shell that covers the damaged reactor totaled more
than 10,700 square feet. Openings in the sarcophagus allow water to
enter the highly radio active structure on its way to the water table
and the nearby Pripyat River that ultimately feeds into the Dnieper
River which supplies water to over 30 million people. Eight hundred
hastily dug burial sites near the reactor hold highly radio active waste
including trees that absorbed radio isotopes from the atmosphere. These
dumps are thought to be the source of contamination already showing up
in the sediments of the Pripyat River adjacent to Chernobyl. The
estimates include 10,000 curies of Strontium 90, 12,000 Cesium 137 and
2,000 curies of plutonium.

The 15-nation European Union and the Ukraine are planning to cover the
existing sarcophagus with another at a cost of some $700 million and
hope to relocate the dumps, but are unsure of where to put them.

The Chernobyl disaster was so great and it's economic impact so costly,
it is said to have been a major contributing factor in the collapse of
the Soviet Union.

2. Nuclear Waste and Terrorism

Since the 9-11 incident, there has been a sense of urgency to remove
these radioactive materials and in particular the stored fuel rods from
their currently exposed locations and bury them under Yucca Mountain.
Before 9-11, visitor centers at many of the nation's nuclear power
plants were freely provided information about the plants, including
aerial photographs identifying individual structures by number, like the
reactors, spent fuel pool buildings and the dry-cask waste storage area.
They were also available on the web. Although no longer available, the
information cannot be taken back.

On July 6, 2002, the government told owners and operators of private
planes to strengthen security because terrorists may try to use "general
aviation aircraft to attack the United States." Of the 215,000 planes
that fly daily in the U.S., over 200,000 are small planes or general
aviation aircraft. The Transportation Security Administration said it
had "credible indications" that terrorists were planning attacks by
using small planes, but were "unaware of what targets they may go
after."

In addition to the 40,000 tons of fuel rods already stored around the
U.S., at the nation's nuclear power plants, each plant produces another
20 tons of spent fuel rods a year. Because of the potential disaster
that exists from a terrorist strike by flying a plane into the cooling
tanks, it has been suggested that "Hot Packing" the rods under Yucca
Mountain might be a solution to reducing their vulnerability.

Hot Packing would involve placing the hot fuel rods directly into
transportation casks as they come out of the reactor and "bypassing" the
cool down period that normally lasts from 5 to 30 years. This would
greatly reduce the amount of time where they are most vulnerable to an
accident or attack. Hot Packing would save time but would result in the
rods melting their casks, and literally boiling the volcanic rock that
surrounds them under Yucca Mountain. A risky maneuver, as no one knows
what else might happen.

After the rods have cooled enough, they are placed in "dry casks" in
order to reduce the danger of an accident and prepare the rods for
relocation. These casks are heavily reinforced concrete and steel, about
15 feet long and reportedly strong enough to withstand a crash at 81 mph
into a concrete wall. They are not, however, a "zero risk proposition"
and they have not been tested against a missile attack. Only 18 reactor
sites have so far started dry packing casks. Fourteen additional sites
will have enough cooled rods to begin dry packing in the near future. It
is hoped that by 2010 up to 60 sites total will have their cooled fuel
rods in dry cask containers.

In June of 2002, the state of California made plans to distribute
potassium Iodide tablets to nearly ½ million people living within 10
miles of a nuclear power plant. They are currently talking about
expanding it to a 50-mile radius to protect many more inhabitants, and
possibly even further in the near future. This decision comes six months
after the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commissions) offered the pills to 34
states with nuclear reactors enough potassium iodide to give each person
within 10 miles of a reactor two days worth of medication. Experts,
however, suggest a 14-day course of treatment. The NRC believes that to
be unnecessary as they feel people will evacuate any danger zone
quickly. But no plans have been made to distribute the pills to the
military, police or fire departments.

The U.S. Postal Service has gone ahead on its own and purchased 1.6
million doses to protect its employees against thyroid cancer in the
event of a nuclear explosion or meltdown. Millions of people who live in
10 states including New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, have already
received the pills.

These pills will not protect a person from all forms of radiation
poisoning such as that received from plutonium, cesium, strontium, or
any of the other forms of radiation; it will only protect the thyroid
from absorbing radioactive iodine and only if it is taken shortly after
exposure. It works by flooding the thyroid with harmless iodine, thereby
preventing the radioactive iodine from being absorbed. The government is
passing out these pills to calm the public's fears since 9-11, as the
public demands protection.

The only real protection would be evacuation of those downwind areas,
something that is probably impossible, as the result would be gridlock.

Back in 1982, a study was done on the possible effects of a "reactor
failure." They estimated that it could kill approximately 27,000 people
in the first year, and another 18,000 deaths would occur over the long
term, and it would result in $86 billion in property damage.

In late 2002, ABS, which specializes in qualifying losses from natural
and man-made hazards, and ANATECH Corp., a firm that evaluates
structural failures, created computer models of the 4-foot thick
concrete reactor containment domes. They have concluded that a 767-400
Jetliner, fully loaded with 28,980 gallons of fuel, flown directly into
the center of a reactor at 350 mph, would not penetrate the structure.

The NRC did not mention if any tests were conducted upon the storage
pools for spent fuel rods. Separate computer modeled crash tests on a
reactor's vulnerability are classified and being conducted by the Sandia
National Laboratories.

Robert Alvarez, a former advisor for the Energy Dept., recently told a
senate committee of a 1997 analysis that had been done. He said a fire
at a spent fuel pool could contaminate up to 188 sq. miles of land. The
NRC acknowledges that its efforts at protecting the pools have been
focused upon earthquake and natural disasters and not on a possible
terrorist attack. The analysis showed that an aircraft crashing into a
spent fuel structure would do significant damage to the building but
that " the pool itself would not leak significantly."

Jack Skolds, an industry spokesman and chief nuclear officer at Exelon
said, "Can I categorically say every spent fuel pool would withstand the
impact of a 767 aircraft? No, I can't tell you that. I can tell you they
are very safe indeed."

Exelon owns 17 nuclear reactors located in Illinois and Pennsylvania.
(Since 9-11, plainclothes employees at Exelon reactors have started to
carry semi-automatic rifles.)

There are 80 nuclear power plants operating east of the Mississippi;
nine are located in New York and Pennsylvania. If for any reason one of
these 9 reactor sites were to experience a loss of water in their
holding tanks for the hot spent fuel rods, it could send a radioactive
cloud sweeping over New York City and other populated areas downwind,
leaving New York state, including Manhattan Island, uninhabitable. The
resulting economic devastation running into the trillions of dollars
could very possibly lead to the collapse of the US economy. The only way
to reduce this threat of exposure is to reduce the on-site storage of
radioactive waste.

Shipping the 77,00 tons of radioactive material from 131 sites, located
in 39 states, across 45 states to Yucca Mountain is how the Department
of Energy plans to reduce that risk. This includes 44,000 tons of spent
fuel rods from 31 states and 33,000 tons of high-level radioactive
waste, most from bomb and warhead-making facilities located in 8 other
states. This material would be shipped by truck and rail across 45
states and through some densely populated areas, like Chicago and St.
Louis. Much of it would be shipped in steel casks, while the more highly
radioactive material would be shipped in lead lined casks. Each rail
cask would weigh approximately 145 tons and hold an amount of Cesium 137
that would be the equivalent of 260 times that released by the Hiroshima
atomic bomb. The Nuclear Energy Institute has reported that these waste
canister cylinders have 15-inch thick, triple layered walls of steel and
lead. They have undergone tests to withstand punctures, 120 mph
collisions and exposure to a 21,475-degree fire for ½ hour.

It is estimated that 99,700 trips by truck will be required from 72 of
the nuclear power plants alone, with an additional 16,240 coming from
the Hanford facility, and another 2,460 from Idaho National Engineering.
Thousands of more trips would be required for the 57 additional sites.
Some 50 million people live within a ½ mile of these projected routes.
Critics have pointed out that the trucks or trains could become targets
of terrorists or that an accident could occur, leaving one of the casks
leaking its cargo into the air, rivers, or lakes. Energy Secretary
Spencer Abraham says there is little risk to the public, and that the
U.S. has already transported 2,700 loads of spent nuclear waste over 1.6
million miles since the 1960's, "without one accident resulting from the
harmful release of radiation." This information is disputed by
representatives of the state of Nevada who contend that there have been
11 accidents where detectable amounts of radioactive materials were
released.

Every year some 60 loads of high-level radioactive material are shipped
by the Navy department, mostly spent reactor fuel from submarines and
atomic power plants.

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn said that he would continue to fight the Yucca
Mountain dumpsite saying that the state has already filed six laws suits
against the project. The first suit attacks the Environmental Protection
Agency's decision that Yucca Mountain be designed for a safety span of
10,000 years vs. 1 million years as advised by the National Academy of
Sciences. The lawsuit also challenges EPA standards regulating the
amount of radiation that would be allowed to leak from Yucca Mountain.

The second lawsuit challenges the government decision to rely on
"engineered solutions" to keep radiation within Yucca Mountain. Despite
the fact that in1982 Congress mandated that a "geologically safe site"
be selected, government scientists have concluded Yucca Mountain is not
solid enough to contain radiation. In addition, opponents say the
mountain has many water-seeping fractures.

In a story published on Nov. 28, 2002, in the Las Vegas Review Journal,
Bill Belke states that he was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's senior
on-site representative at the project for seven years. During that time
he watched closely as Department of Energy contract workers tried to
troubleshoot two decades of data that scientists had gathered. Some of
the information involved earthquake hazards, volcanic activity and
groundwater paths. "Computer models were created with the test of time."
Belke said, "I know with the problems I've seen, there's been a lot of
problems with the data, and the data, if its going to a License, has got
to be a high pedigree quality to support their licensing activities.
They've got to make a case that this data is accurate and qualified.
There are significant problems."

There are reports that two men who worked on the site as quality
assurance specialists were fired or transferred after voicing concerns
about the site. Nevada senators Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John
Ensign have alleged "fraud and abuse " in the firing of the two workers
and are calling for congressional investigation. Reid was also sent an
anonymous letter on Nov. 25, 2002 that stated; "Currently as much as 50
percent of the data used to support the site recommendation of the Yucca
Mountain Project is lost - NRC is aware of this." The data for the core
samples, geology, volcanic activity and ground water paths may not be
complete or accurate and may not have been documented properly.
Equipment used to gather some of this information would be calibrated
differently today.

Opponents of the project contend that it is the nuclear industry that
has been pushing the project forward. Without a permanent repository for
the spent fuel currently stored on site around the country, the industry
can't possibly move forward with plans for further construction. Since
1994 the nuclear power industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have
spent approximately $72 million lobbying in favor of a repository at
Yucca Mountain.

At Clark County, Nevada, a study released in January 2002, estimated
that a roadway accident including nuclear material on its way to Yucca
Mountain could force 90,000 residents to move and eliminate 54,000 jobs
and cost the economy $1.4 Billion. Joe Davis of the Energy Department
says, "We have an incredible track record, the amount of shipping would
increase but we think we could safely and securely continue to move it."
But in mid July 2002, as the vote in the U.S. Senate neared, some
Senators began to question the transportation plans and voice their
concerns.

Sen. Barbara Boxer D- Calif. says her "worst nightmare" is terrorists
blowing up a truckload of lethal nuclear waste and contaminating a
heavily populated stretch of Interstate 15 between L.A. and Nevada.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-ILL, thinks it is very dangerous to be moving
thousands of tons of nuclear waste through Chicago's dense hub of
railways and highways, or "God Forbid", on barges crossing the Great
Lakes or traveling on the Mississippi River.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski is fearful of a repeat of last years Baltimore
rail tunnel accident and fire, but this time possibly involving spent
fuel from Maryland's Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant. "We cannot risk
this happening with nuclear cargo", she said. "This nuclear waste is
going to go by our schools; it's going to go by our hospitals. It is
going to go by our children. It's going to go by our homes."

Former Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., said she is opposed to the
transportation plan after learning that there would be more than 19,000
truck and 4,000 rail shipments of nuclear waste going through her state
saying, "I don't want Missouri to become the nation's waste super
highway."

Yucca Mountain is scheduled to begin receiving shipments in 2010, and
are to be continued for at least another 38 years. So far an estimated
$6.8 billion has been spent on this 24-year-old project, with another
estimated $51 billion needed to complete it. These are only estimates
for the project as currently configured, and may possibly grow larger as
the volume of radioactive waste continues to increase. Add to this the
costs of constructing the storage casks, shipping, and that of making
possibly 200,000 trips in caravans with heavily armed personnel.
Estimates for those costs have not been released by the Department of
Energy so far, but are sure to be in the billions of dollars. The cost
of Nuclear Power, originally thought to be so cheap that we wouldn't
need electric meters and could leave the lights on all the time, as well
as the expense associated with radioactive waste that grows ever larger
from the cold war bomb and war head assembly plants and its related
facilities, continue to spiral upward, with no end in sight.

In reactors designed to produce plutonium for weapons, the spent fuel
rods are removed from the reactor core and undergo a series of
processing procedures to recover the tiny bits of plutonium
(approximately 3 grams per fuel rod). This is accomplished by using a
variety of chemicals and acids such as nitric acid to melt the rods and
uranium pellets inside. Plutonium being heavier drops to the bottom of
this solution and is then able to be recovered. After further
processing, it is eventually molded then machined into spherical pits.
This plutonium pit, usually about the size of a softball, then becomes
the heart of a thermo nuclear "weapons." It's during this separating
process to recover the plutonium that large quantities of liquid, long
lived, radioactive waste are produced.

Over 55 million gallons are stored at the Hanford reservation in
Washington State. This mix of radioactive waste includes many dangerous
chemicals, acids and nitrates that if not treated properly, can be very
explosive. The waste solution is then stored in underground tanks that
vary in size, holding anywhere from 55,000 to 1.4 million gallons.

[swimjames]

The NRG application likely will revive debate about the wisdom of building more nuclear reactors, especially since the industry still doesn't have a federal repository for the radioactive waste from an existing U.S. fleet of 104 operating reactors. Efforts to license a waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, have been opposed by Nevada officials and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

[swimjames]

Jim Corbin- NRG will definitely not be using a thorium reactor, just confirmed by WSJ writer, Rebecca Smith
Staff Reporter
The Wall Street Journal
[phone]

Not good news!